Lotus Confirms Evora 400 Roadster And 4-Eleven

Lotus has made a lot of promises over the years that it hasn’t delivered on at all; the company is basically the alcoholic dad of sports car manufacturers. But Lotus has been under new management lately, with boss Jean-Marc Gales at the job for just over a year. And so far, Gales seems to be delivering. We recently got the 2016 Lotus 3-Eleven and things certainly appear to be on track for the upcoming 2018 Lotus SUV, painful as that might be for some to accept.

Gales recently sat down with Top Gear Magazine to talk about where the company is headed. A couple of very interesting things came out of this too; mainly the revelation that an Evora 400 Roadster is coming and that there are plans for a 4-Eleven in two years. That same year will also see a new Exige, an evolution of the current design, and Gales promises that all of the cars in the lineup will continue to get faster and lighter. The Evora 400 Roadster will have two removable roof sections in the usual Lotus fashion, but here they will be carbon fiber and weigh just 3kg (6.6lbs) each. No details yet on the 4-Eleven.

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Why it matters

Lotus has never been a very profitable company, to put it as nicely as possible, but things appear to be turning around. Sales are up 55 percent in the last year, and quality seems to be much improved too. As evidence of this second point, Jean-Marc Gales told Top Gear that warranty repair costs had dropped to
a third of what they were two years ago.

Not only that, but the plans we’re hearing for these new models aren’t the absurdly ambitious Bahar rantings of a few years ago; these seem pretty reasonable. And for those still fretting about the idea of a Lotus SUV, it seems that it will be made primarily for the Chinese market, and will even be built in China, only coming to other markets (if at all) in 2020 at the earliest. Now watch as these naysayers wind up first in line to order one.